


All Hollow's Eve

by junko



Series: Strawberrry Fields Forever [10]
Category: Bleach, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-25
Updated: 2013-03-25
Packaged: 2017-12-06 11:26:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/735139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/junko/pseuds/junko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Halloween at Hogwarts and Ichigo is feeling left behind by his friends.  Will a note from Hat-and-Clogs give him new direction?</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Hollow's Eve

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for language. Ichigo has a foul mouth (big surprise) also there are somewhat rude terms for people of mixed race in Japanese.

At least the British seemed to understand Halloween. Ichigo hadn’t heard any talk of a parade, but, for once, he felt in sync with the season as jack-o-lanterns started appearing around Hogwart’s castle. 

Owl post at breakfast brought Ichigo several Halloween cards and a bright orange package from Orihime. Inside, were orange-and-black spotted faux fur cat ear deelie-boppers, a big bag of scallop and sweet sauce candy, and a Halloween-themed ‘Hello Kitty’ keychain charm. In her happy lettering, Orihime wrote:

 

> Dear Kurosaki-kun:
> 
> Mr. Urahara tells me that they celebrate Halloween where you are, so I’m sending a costume (you can be a leopard!) and candy for you to share with your new friends. Tatsuki and I are going to the parade by the canal later tonight, just like old times. Oh, and Uryu and I are going together now! I told him he’d better write and explain like a gentleman!
> 
> Happy Halloween!  
>  Inoue Orihime

Ichigo stuck the ears on his head and set the card aside. He started hunting for the card from Ishida, even though he hardly needed to read it to understand that his friends were moving on without him. Uryu and Orihime, huh? No surprise there. He supposed he should be upset, but instead he found himself re-reading the line ‘your new friends’ more than any other.

New friends? He still felt like a stranger here. Ichigo pulled out his soul cell and attached the ‘Hello Kitty’ charm. It hadn’t beeped with Hollow activity in so long, Ichigo wondered why he bothered to carry it. He tucked the phone back in his pocket with a sigh. 

Letting go was the hardest.

And it was like he stuck in limbo; refusing to let go, but having nothing to hold onto. 

Cedric Diggory leaned in to inspect Ichigo’s mail, “’Dear John’ letter from your girl back home, eh? Bad luck.” He glanced up at the furry cat ears on Ichigo’s head, “At least she sent you a parting gift.”

He shrugged an acknowledgement. “I guess, but she wasn’t mine to begin with.” 

_Don’t need any of ‘em, King_ , cackled the voice in the back of Ichigo's head. _It’s just you and me now_.

“Maybe it’s just as well,” Ichigo muttered. What good was he if he couldn’t control that Other? He was going to end up like quivering Professor Quirrell, afraid of his own shadow. 

“It’s not that bad, is it?” Diggory looked a little stricken at Ichigo’s response, so Ichigo shoved the bag of candy at him. 

“You want chewy candy that tastes like scallops?” Ichigo asked.

“Dear god, no!” Diggory backed away from it, and quickly turned back to his other friends.

Ichigo shook his head. Everyone here thought his food was weird. What the hell was he going to do with all that candy? Maybe the Weasley twins would take it as a novelty item to dare all the first years with.

He unwrapped one and popped it into his mouth. As he chewed, he tore open Ishida’s card. It showed a cartoon Frankenstein’s monster on the cover. Inside, Ishida’s note was very formal. Ichigo could clearly hear Ishida’s voice and imagine the way the light would reflect off his glasses as he pushed them up onto his nose.

> Kurosaki,
> 
> I have no idea why Ms. Orihime insists I write this, because, no doubt, you opened her package first. If you had some claim to her, you should have been clearer. She would’ve waited for you. No doubt some part of her still does, but I am here and you are not.
> 
> Ishida Uryu

Then the card told Ichigo to have a ‘Ghoulishly Good Halloween.’ 

Irritated, Ichigo tossed it aside to look through the rest. His father sent a card with no note just a vaguely rude picture that might be an image of two ghosts hugging… or… probably best not to try to guess. Dad wrote his usual illegible scrawl of a signature. Yuzu at least added that they missed him. He wondered if Kon was having any luck defending London from Hollows.

The last piece of mail was the most curious. In among all the black and orange was a bright pink card with a big red heart. Ichigo opened it to find a Valentine’s card from crazy hat-and-clogs. Apparently, along with announcing his undying love in rhyming couplets, he left a quick note that sounded like something out of a spy movie:

> Kurosaki-san,
> 
> Contact has been made. Should you require anything, it will be available. You might wish to consider meeting these new colleagues sooner rather than later. Things are moving on the other side.
> 
> Love always! XOXO  
>  Urahara Kisuke

He might be a total perv, but Urahara’s note made Ichigo feel like he still might have a part to play, even stuck so far away. Ichigo jammed Urahara’s card back into its envelope and slid it into the back pocket of his pants. 

Now he just had to find time to require a room.

 

#

Classes were going a lot easier since Dumbledore loaned Ichigo the use of his wand for the remains of the semester. At first Ichigo didn’t want it. That was gross, wasn’t it? It was like wielding someone else’s zanpakutō--way too personal--but Dumbledore insisted he take it from him. In fact, he’d made Ichigo snatch it out of his hand.

Weird British wizards.

Anyway, the wand seemed to work for him better even than Zangetsu’s littler sister. Ichigo couldn’t summon a mini-Getsuga Tenshō anymore, but, for whatever reason, he had a lot less trouble focusing his reiryoku through it. Ichigo thought the wand felt lighter, freer, like it wasn’t burdened with the weight of a fragmented soul, but was its own thing. He liked that. It felt more natural, stronger…. More like a zanpakutō, really.

It was almost too bad he couldn’t keep it. But, Ichigo had no plans to practice any of this British magic back home, and, anyway, Dumbledore made him solemnly swear not only to bring it back, but to bring it back in one piece. 

Having a better wand wasn’t helping the awkward that was Defense Against Dark Arts, however. Ever since the altercation with Quirrell and his extra soul, Ichigo felt very watched in that class. It was like Quirrell had sprouted eyes in the back of his head under that turban, and they were super extra creepy. Just being near him made Ichigo’s skin crawl.

It wasn’t unbearable, but it was awkward enough that Ichigo had started skipping. He wasn’t going to pass the class, anyway, and it sure as shit wasn’t teaching him how to fight anything he’d ever have to deal with again. So most days, he’d just head for a nearby rooftop and write his letters or nap on the rare sunny days. 

It drove his fellow Hufflepuffs insane to watch him break from the herd. But even they noticed quickly that class went smoother when Ichigo wasn’t in it—more relaxed, more normal stuttering Quirrell fumbling with the chalk. 

Eventually they accepted that Ichigo was also better for the time alone, too. 

Today, it was raining. Even inside the castle, with logs burning in every fireplace, the air was clammy and moist with a chill that seemed to bite deep under Ichigo’s skin. He followed everyone most of the way to class, but then slunk into the shadow of an alcove to wait until the bell had rung. The stone was cold where it pressed against Ichigo’s back.

When the halls were clear of the last stragglers, he started off. 

He kept his fingers curled around the substitute soul reaper badge in his pocket as he made his way up the stairs towards the forbidden third floor halls. Ichigo kept his eyes peeled for signs of Filch. As he reached the top of the stairs, Ichigo felt something lift the cat-ear deelie-boppers from his head. He glanced up to see Peeves’s grin appear ghoulishly out of thin air. “Cat got your ears!” he sang. “Ears! Ears! Ears! Cat’s got your ears!”

Pulling the badge out of his pocket, Ichigo slammed it into his chest. He felt the familiar mini-explosive push as his soul form was forced out. Peeves made a squeak at the sight of Zangetsu pointed at him as Ichigo stepped into the air. 

“That’s right,” Ichigo said, turning Zangetsu around to show Peeves the kashira, the butt cap at the tip of the grip. “Drop my stuff now or I’ll send your miserable soul on to wherever it’s going.”

The cat ears clattered to the floor. Peeves streaked away with a squealing hiss.

Ichigo relaxed his stance and sheathed Zangetsu. With a sigh, he retrieved his body. Sitting up, he rubbed the back of his head where it had cracked hard against the marble flooring. Stuffing the badge back in his pocket, he started to hunt around for the cat ears. 

He found their plastic headband shattered in two on the landing. Ichigo sat down hard on the stairs and stared at it. Against the cold, gray stone, the orange faux fur ears were a splash of cheerfully warm brilliance.

So much like her.

And now they lay broken, snapped in two.

Fuck. 

How pathetic was this? Ichigo felt as wrecked as the headband. Worse, he’d been reduced to using the substitute soul reaper badge to scare off poltergeists with empty threats. Zangetsu deserved better. 

Standing up, Ichigo kicked the ears aside. The left side of his face felt hard and brittle; his vision darkened. He was going to find this stupid room of requirement and in it there was going to be something he could kill. 

That was what he required. 

Yes, a murderous rage would set everything right, wouldn’t it, King?

#

This time Ichigo crouched down and pulled the doors open cautiously. He was glad he didn’t just barrel in because this time the room revealed a dank, dark warehouse. There were heavy cardboard boxes piled all around on the concrete floor. A bank of narrow windows at the top of the cavernous space let in muted, silver moonlight. The place smelled of dust and disuse.

Ichigo stood up and stepped over the threshold, thinking maybe the room was broken. How could he possibly require this? Did it decide that given his mood he should spend some time alone, fighting shadows?

As he took a few cautious steps forward, he felt something that made him reach not for the substitute soul reaper badge, but for the borrowed wand. Kidō? Ichigo was never terribly sensitive to any kind of spiritual magic, but this he could feel—it was almost like a barrier of some kind.

Okay, maybe he wasn’t alone here.

He called out ‘hello’ before he remembered that he was probably back in Japan. So he tried it again in the correct language. 

“Jesus, this place is spooky,” came a voice beside Ichigo that made him jump. On his other side, another said, “This is the worst hide-out ever, mate.”

The Weasley twins. “Did you morons follow me?” Ichigo asked. 

“Well, we saw you pass out on the steps,” Fred said. George nodded, “We had to come find you to tease you. Did Peeves actually make you faint?”

It confused Ichigo the extent to which only certain British wizards could see his soul reaper form. They all saw ghosts just like he did, but Ichigo seemed to fall into the same category as the thestrals—if someone had seen a person die before their eyes, they could see him in shinigami form. 

Apparently, Fred and George couldn’t. 

Ichigo shrugged in answer to their question. “I’m supposed to be meeting someone here, so you know, push off, would you, guys?”

“Oooooh a secret rendezvous!” Fred cooed. George asked, “Is it a lover?”

Ichigo was about to tell them to stuff their comments when he was bowled over by a flying kick to the chin. A tiny, blond haired girl with pig-tails and a snaggle tooth stood on his chest, and shouted, “Which one of you idiots is Kurosaki Ichigo?”

Even though neither understood a word of Japanese, both twins instantly pointed at the ground where Ichigo lay, momentarily stunned, and shouted, “Him!”

 _Typical Gryffindors, throwing me under the bus_ , Ichigo thought with a snarl and a grab for the substitute soul reaper badge. Just for that, Ichigo wasn’t going to bother being polite and speak English so they could understand him. “Who the hell are you?”

Ichigo pushed the girl off his chest with a great heave. He wasn’t surprised at all when she made a perfect flip and managed to land on her feet. Ichigo pulled himself upright with a grunt. 

“Sarugaki Hiyori,” she said. Then, she lifted a hand to her face in a way that felt so familiar that it made Ichigo’s gut clench. A bone white mask materialized as she dragged her fingers down, like she was flipping down a visor. The black eyes with yellow irises that stared at Ichigo from behind the mask sent a chill straight into his soul.

As Ichigo was bringing up the substitute soul reaper badge to his chest, the twins drew their wands. In unison, they shouted, “Stupefy!”

Light burst from the tips of their wands and Sarugaki seemed to be knocked back a step. Then, the mask melted away and her eyes rolled up into her head. She collapsed first to her knees, and then face-planted on the cold, concrete floor.

Magic worked on… Hollows? Fuck! Ichigo needed to pay better attention in class! “Holy crap! You totally knocked her out,” he shouted to the twins, switching back to English. “What is this ‘stupefy’ spell? That’s like the most useful thing ever! Why haven’t we learned that in Defense Against the Dark Arts?”

“Because Quirrell is a ninny,” George said, tucking away his wand. Doing the same, Fred nodded in agreement, “Total prat.”

Ichigo looked over to where the pig-tailed girl lay in her track suit and matching trainers. “Uh, yeah, thanks for that, guys,” he said. “But, I think that was the person I was supposed to meet.”

“Isn’t she a bit young for you?” George wanted to know. Fred added, “And I think maybe your girlfriend’s a monster.”

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Ichigo grumbled. He rubbed his jaw where it was starting to feel brittle and heavy. “Did you guys ‘require’ irritating me? Because, seriously, you’re making my face hurt.”

The sound of running feet had Ichigo spinning around. Another blond—this one a dude with a funky asymmetrical bob cut—burst out from somewhere behind a stack of crates. “Hiyori!” he shouted. Spotting her crumpled form on the floor, he spun around to face the three boys. “What have you done to her?”

“No ‘Stupefying’!” Ichigo shouted as the twins' hands dropped to their waistbands. “Let me talk to him.”

The man looked at the three of them questioningly, “Gaijin?”

A blush colored Ichigo’s cheeks at the question, though he doubted if the guy knew just how many fights that word had started in Ichigo’s life--though ‘foreigner’ was at least better than ‘konketsuji’ or ‘hāfu’ which automatically earned a punch. “That’s funny coming from someone with your hair color,” Ichigo shot back. “You’re with the Hollow girl, right?” He dug around in his back pocket until he found the Valentine card from Urahara. He held up like it was his passport. “Because… I’ve got the same, uh, problem. The crazy shopkeeper, Mr. Urahara, sent me.” 

“And your idiot friends?” the guy asks slowly standing up to peer at Ichigo. “They look awfully foreign for delinquents who bleach their hair.”

Ichigo had to swallow a growl. “Fuck off about the hair, okay? Can you help me with my… thing or not?”

“Yes,” he said and smiled in a way Ichigo found kind of frightening—a little too thin and wide, almost like a skeleton. “But you’ll have to ditch the posse and the attitude.”

“You’re stuck with the attitude,” Ichigo told him. “But I’ll see what I can do about Fred and George.”

The boys in question had been watching the conversation like it was a tennis match. They perked up at the sound of their names. “Can we stupify him yet?” George asked. Fred agreed, “I don’t know what he’s saying, but he gives me the creeps.”

Ichigo had to agree. “Yeah, but I think he’s my ally right now. I’ve got some stuff I need to do with him. You know… alone.”

Fred and George instantly took this the wrong way. They talked over each other as they exclaimed, “No, you don’t, Ichigo! We’re not leaving you with him!”

As they continued to protest, Ichigo pressed the substitute soul reaper badge into his chest. Fred caught his body on the way down. Ichigo stepped back and leveled his gaze on the man still standing over the stupefied Sarugaki. He was not surprised at all to see him meet his eyes.

“He fainted again!” George noted. Fred shook his head, “Let’s get out of here. Take him to the nurse!”

Who would probably pronounce him dead on arrival, but there wasn’t much for Ichigo to do about that now. Hell, maybe they’d ship his body home and he could finally get out of Hogwarts.

“Can we finally get down to business?” Ichigo asked.

The man nodded, watching as Fred and George awkwardly shoved Ichigo’s body through the still half-open doors of the room of requirement. When they finally hauled themselves through, George stuck his face through and shouted, “Ha! Piss off, you weirdo!”

“Jesus, George, we better hurry. Ichigo feels cold,” Fred said.

Then the two of them slammed the door shut.

“So,” the man said, putting his hand up to his face. “Did you bring your own mask to the Halloween ball?”

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, Ichigo has the Elder Wand. Don't worry, Dumbledore will get it back ASAP. I mean, Ichigo did just "die."
> 
> No one has ever explicitly said that 'Bleach' gets its title from the fact that Ichigo probably had a lot of people accusing him of coloring his hair, but that's always seemed self-evident to me. Just as his mixed-race heritage has seemed to me the obvious reason why he's always shown in canon as having a lot of random fights as a child and all through high school (of course, the irony being for those reading the current storyline, we now know just how critical being mixed-RACE is to Ichigo's personality, history and superpowers...) 
> 
> Other notes: I kind of adore the idea that my AU-Ichigo might try 'stupefying' a Hollow some day.


End file.
